Tom's Hardware is a community I came across when (you guessed it) I had some computer trouble.
I was looking for specs and ideas on a new computer purchase and one of my searches brought me to Tom's. Signing up was easy and like other tech forums, there were lots of people ready to try to answer my questions. I had a pleasant experience and got useful, helpful answers to my questions - ever since, I have been going back to Tom's to ask new questions or just to surf around the various forums looking for interesting tidbits (of which I have found many).
As you can imagine, this forum is dedicated to computer hardware (motherboards, graphics cards, components, etc), but also branches out in to networking, operating systems, and electronics. Ask a question and within hours you will receive a reply from someone - any user can reply, from the novice to the true experts, but I have always received what I consider to be helpful information. After a few comments, you can use triangulation to find the best of the best.
The purpose of the site is therefore to inform. Tom's does this through articles, white papers, editorials, performance charts and comparisons, and of course the forum community. I would say a great number of the users, posters and readers are gamers trying to eke as much out of their system as possible so as to run the best games with the fastest graphics possible. But this is not the only constituency served. Average and above-average users can certainly gain from the tech knowledge shared at Tom's site.
Tom's Hardware is a community I came across when (you guessed it) I had some computer trouble.
I was looking for specs and ideas on a new computer purchase and one of my searches brought me to Tom's. Signing up was easy and like other tech forums, there were lots of people ready to try to answer my questions. I had a pleasant experience and got useful, helpful answers to my questions - ever since, I have been going back to Tom's to ask new questions or just to surf around the various forums looking for interesting tidbits (of which I have found many).
As you can imagine, this forum is dedicated to computer hardware (motherboards, graphics cards, components, etc), but also branches out in to networking, operating systems, and electronics. Ask a question and within hours you will receive a reply from someone - any user can reply, from the novice to the true experts, but I have always received what I consider to be helpful information. After a few comments, you can use triangulation to find the best of the best.
The purpose of the site is therefore to inform. Tom's does this through articles, white papers, editorials, performance charts and comparisons, and of course the forum community. I would say a great number of the users, posters and readers are gamers trying to eke as much out of their system as possible so as to run the best games with the fastest graphics possible. But this is not the only constituency served. Average and above-average users can certainly gain from the tech knowledge shared at Tom's site.